Clean Energy Earnings: Nat Gas Truck Stocks
NEW YORK (
) -- President Obama is better for natural gas vehicle stocks than the companies' earnings reports.
That's likely to be the trading talk after Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE) - Get Report reported a loss of 10 cents on revenue of $46 million in the third quarter. The Street was looking for a loss of 7 cents on revenue of $51 million. A tax credit that expired at the end of 2009 impacted earnings per share for the company, as it lost the value of more than $3 million in a tax credit it was able to book in the third quarter 2009.
Even though it's a miss for Clean Energy Fuels, it's not likely to be the type of miss that weighs heavily on the shares. After all, the Street was expecting a loss, and companies in the natural gas vehicle space are bets on the enactment of federal legislation to support the development of natural gas vehicle fleets, as opposed to plays on quarter to quarter earnings.
Clean Energy Fuels shares were down 1.5% in after-hours trading on Monday.
Clean Energy Fuels and
Westport Innovations
(WPRT) - Get Report
both recently rallied when President Obama mentioned natural gas vehicles as part of energy legislation he hopes to enact short of carbon cap-and-trade. In reality, what Obama proposed was no different from what is already expected to be a natural gas vehicle provision of any energy bill; it's getting a bill passed and on what timeline that remains the issue. The natural gas vehicle stocks even rallied when the EPA introduced its first emissions standards for heavy duty trucks, even though it didn't directly relate to nat gas vehicles.
>>Clean Energy Winners: EPA Emissions Trades
Westport Innovations took a small decline after its earnings, but it wasn't on the numbers. Westport announced a secondary offering of 5.5 million shares that precipitated the decline, and that decline came after a double-digit rally in shares stoked by legislative chatter.
The only natural gas vehicle stock that actually trades on quarterly numbers is
Fuel Systems Solutions
(FSYS)
, because it actually makes money in the European region where a natural gas vehicle market already exists. Fuel Systems Solutions sold off after its earnings last week when a slowdown in European sales made investors skittish about the 2011 outlook.
>>Fuel Systems Solutions: Clean Energy Losers
-- Written by Eric Rosenbaum from New York.
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